


Interstellar Adventure Mix, Vol. 1

by freudensteins_monster



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Asgard (Marvel), Childhood Friends, Darcy Lady Sif and the Warriors Three walk into a bar at the end of the universe, Darcy Lewis's iPod, Darcy knew Peter growing up, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Knowhere, Pay no attention to the screwy timelines, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7633954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudensteins_monster/pseuds/freudensteins_monster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy is bored in Asgard whilst Jane's busy sciencing so Sif and the Warriors Three take her for a drink in a bar at the end of the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interstellar Adventure Mix, Vol. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pay no attention to the screwy timelines. I have no idea how old Darcy's supposed to be, but Peter is supposed to be 35, which would make Darcy about 32ish, which I didn't think was quite right. So, let's either pretend that Peter didn't get abducted until the 90's, or perhaps Darcy just skipped the 90's altogether :P

                                                                     

Darcy rubbed the sleep from her eyes and held Monkey, her favourite stuffed animal, closer. Her parents were arguing again. She tried to block it out by pulling her blanket over her head, but when their voices got even louder she gave up, throwing the blanket off and crawling out of bed. She held Monkey under her arm and quietly pushed a chair towards the window, climbing up and out with practised ease. She walked slowly to the end of the roof and with a whispered apology dropped Monkey before climbing down the lattice work her mother had never gotten around to planting anything under. Darcy jumped from two feet up and collected Monkey as she ran for her treehouse. She climbed the ladder quickly and almost fell straight back down again when a hand shot out to pull her inside.

“Darcy, it’s late, what are you doing up?” the boy from next door asked. He was a little older than her but he was nice and didn’t call her ‘four eyes’ so she didn’t mind sharing her treehouse with him. “Your parents fighting again?” he guessed, sitting back in a ratty old beanbag in the corner.

“Yeah…” Darcy replied quietly, hugging Monkey tightly and staring intently at the stitching in his arm. “What about you?”

“My mom’s back in the hospital,” he admitted, his eyes glued to the Walkman in his hands.

“Sorry.”

He shrugged it off awkwardly and fidgeted with his headphones, black and orange things she never saw him without.

“Come on,” he said, putting his headphones on before shifting to make room for her. Darcy smiled and did as asked, settling in beside him so she was leaning against the side of his head and could hear the music from his headphones.

“What this one called?” Darcy yawned.

“[O-O-H Child. Five Stairsteps. 1970](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaTA_PoayFc).”

_Ooh child… Things are gonna get easier… Ooh child… Things'll get brighter…_

** *** **

_Darcy… Darcy…_ **_Darcy!_**

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep in the treehouse again!” Darcy shouted, flailing about as she was wrenched from her dream. “You’re not my dad,” she mumbled groggily as Jane stared back at her.

“No. No, I’m not,” Jane agreed.

“What’s going on? Where am I?”

“Darcy,” Jane sighed wearily. “How much mead did you drink last night?”

_Mead? Oh, right. Asgard._

“I’m not hungover,” Darcy replied, rubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes. “Just disorientated,” she added, glancing about her guest suite in the royal palace. “I just had the weirdest dream. More of a memory, I think. Friggin Bifrost,” Darcy grumbled, the details of the dream already fading away as she fell back into bed. “Always messes with my dreams. Last time we came here I dreamt that Thor had pigtails and wielded a magic vacuum cleaner.”

Jane snorted as she went about putting Darcy’s scattered clothes in a slightly less chaotic pile.

“I really don’t think it was the Bifrost, Darcy. If I had to guess it would have been the combination of Asgardian ale and all that food you ate last night. Namely that purple cheese, made from the milk of godknowswhat.”

“You may have a point there,” Darcy conceded. “What are you doing?” she asked as Jane continued her ineffectual cleaning spree.

“Tidying up. Really Darcy, how can you live like this?”

“Says the woman who tells time by mould growth on a coffee cup she has yet to throw in the trash.”

“He’s just as accurate as any calendar, thank you very much.”

“He?”

“Well, yeah, he’s practically a sentient lifeform now,” Jane joked, earning a snort of laughter from Darcy.

“Seriously Janie, why are you cleaning?”

“Because we’re going out for the day and I don’t want the maids to think we lowly Midgardians like to wallow in our own filth.”

“Ugh. You get the stink eye from a few more stuck up Asgardians? Forget about them. Or don’t. Remember their names, hold on to that rage, and when you become queen you can be all, ‘Off with their heads!’”

“I’m not going to become queen, Darcy,” Jane scoffed.

“Well… Thor will become king one day, and you two are just stupid for each other, so that would make you… one day… Say it with me now,” she sang.

Jane threw a clean shirt at Darcy’s head in reply.

“Come on, get dressed. You already missed breakfast, but we could probably grab an apple or something on the way to the observatory.”

“The observatory?”

“Yes, Heimdall and a few of Asgard’s best minds are going to explain it to me and I’m going to take some readings.”

“And I will be doing… what exactly?” The question gave Jane pause. “Exactly,” Darcy continued, rolling out of bed. “Asgard has all the brains and brawn you could possibly want, Janie. You don’t need me. And more importantly, I don’t want to be hanging around being confused as well as useless, so… Darcy Lewis is officially on vacation,” she announced, picking out a few more items of clothing from the pile Jane had made and headed for the bathroom.

“Are you sure? You’re not going to get bored on your own?”

“It’s Asgard, Jane. It’s impossible to be bored here.”

** *** **

It was totally possible, Darcy lamented as the bright and beautiful day dragged on. She’d done all the sightseeing stuff on her last trip, and Asgardians were kind of eternal so ‘new’ wasn’t really something that they did easily. And Asgard was always so shiny and polished and perfect, it definitely got boring after a while.

“Isn’t there some kind of seedy underbelly to this place? Where does all that rip-roaring adventure Thor’s always going on about happen?” she asked Sif and the Warriors Three after she invited herself to lunch with them.

“The Lady Darcy wants desires danger and adventure?” Fandral preened, the subtext of his words going completely unnoticed by Darcy, much to others amusement.

“I’d settle for a restaurant at the end of the world. Just something… _new_ ,” she shrugged, sipping on her goblet of juice, having sworn herself off Asgardian ale for the remainder of her trip.

“We know of a bar at the end of the world,” Sif said brightly. “Will that suffice?”

“That is hardly the place for Lady Darcy,” Volstagg argued. “It is filled with outlaws and thieves; the dregs of the universe. Thor would never permit it.”

“Thor is busy entertaining Lady Jane. He need never know,” Sif countered with a minimum of bitterness.

“Where are we going?” Darcy asked excitedly.

“Knowhere.”

“No, seriously. Tell me.”

** *** **

Darcy arrived in Knowhere via the Continuum Cortex, a teleportation station located in the brainstem of a long dead giant alien being called a Celestial, escorted by Sif and the Warriors Three in full battle armour. A cooler sentence Darcy could not imagine. And nor could she imagine a cooler, stranger, smellier place in the universe than Knowhere. The Asgardians closed ranks around her as they moved through the filthy chaos of the strange city, but through the gaps in their leather and fur clad bodies Darcy saw amazing, messed up things. There were small flying craft drilling into the Celestials skull high above her, there were bubbling pools of yellow muck that strange looking people were syphoning into the outer space equivalent of oil tankers. There were slums and marketplaces and stores full of weird weapons and children running around trying to pickpocket you. And she was pretty sure that guy slumped over the busted up spacecraft was dead.

“Oh geez…” she muttered, clutching the strap of her bag life a life preserver.

“Everything alright, Lady Darcy?” Fandral queried.

“Uh-uh,” she hummed. “I wanted dangerous and exciting. This… this definitely fits the bill,” she mumbled, looping her arm in Fandral’s, gluing herself to his side.

“Never fear, Lady Darcy. We will keep you safe,” Sif assured her. “The drinking house is just ahead.”

The moment Darcy stepped inside the space bar, any illusions she had about it being safer than outside were shattered. It was wild. And loud. So fucking loud. Fandral took her by the hand and pulled her inside as they walked in Volstagg’s wake as he cleared a path through the crowd to find them a table.

“I’ll buy the first round,” Sif announced, disappearing into the throng of people and vaguely humanoid beings. She returned a few minutes later with four pitchers of something pungent and a small glass of something green with orange bubbles. “The barkeep assured me it was safe for Midgardians.”

“Let’s find out,” Darcy replied, throwing back the drink. It tasted like grape jello and Thanksgiving turkey.

“He also said you should sip it slowly,” Sif sighed despairingly.

“Oops,” Darcy giggled, and she kept giggling for a full minute until she burped a small cloud of orange mist, at which point the rest of the table broke out into laughter.

“I’ll go get you another one,” Volstagg grinned, getting up from the table, draining what remained his entire pitcher of alcohol.

“I think I’m goooood,” she burped, earning another laugh.

Darcy cut herself off after her second drink, which she sipped on for half an hour. By that stage Volstagg had gone in search of a hot meal and Fandral was across the room flirting with a woman with pink skin and yellow eyes. Hogan had wandered to the centre of the bar to observe some sort of rat roulette game that had the crowd in a drunken frenzy, leaving Sif and Darcy to engage in girl talk.

“… I was surrounded, but I swung my blade in arc, faster than the eye could see, and before the beasts could think of raising their weapons the battleground was painted with their intestines.”

“Wow… That’s awesome,” Darcy replied, trying to sound enthusiastic as possible.

Sif beamed and downed the remainder of her drink, the swish of the alcohol reminded Darcy of something she had been putting off as long as possible.

“I need to pee,” she announced louder than she’d like.

Sif rose from the table and indicated that Darcy should follow her. She stopped near the gaming table and pointed to doorway in the far corner of the bar.

“The facilities are through there,” Sif shouted over the crowd.

“How will I know which one’s the ladies? Do they even have a ladies room?”

“Nothing so binary,” Sif explained. “Just step into a stall and close the door. It will automatically adjust to accommodate your anatomy.”

“Right…” Darcy muttered, making for the bathroom, trying to remain upright as she was jostled around by the lively crowd.

She pushed on the door and found a row of stalls, just like any other public bathroom. She cautiously stepped inside one and locked the door behind her. It was just an empty stall with a door and three flat walls, but then there was a flash and a beep and out of the back wall a simple metal toilet bowl appeared.

After the longest and most awkward minute of her life Darcy stumbled out of the stall, throwing wayward lengths tissue paper back at the technological marvel.

“Toilets shouldn’t talk!” she screeched, spinning on her heel smack bang into a black leather clad alien with as many tentacles as it had eyes. “Oh god,” she whimpered, pressing herself against the wall as the alien pushed passed her. The second it closed the stall door Darcy made a run for it. She hadn’t taken more than three steps when she tripped and fell flat on her face.

“Watch where you’re going, idiot!” a disgruntled voice yelled. Darcy scrambled backwards in time to see a raccoon, who was walking upright, wearing a red wetsuit, and carrying a giant fucking gun, walk into a stall.

Darcy jumped to her feet and raced for the door. Back in the main bar she was almost felled by the noise. She spotted Sif near the gaming table, shouting for blood along with the rest of the crowd. Darcy tried to make her way over to her but was shoved aside by a purple dude with six arms, right into the chest of a walking tree.

“Oh god,” she cried again, reeling backwards. It was all too much. Talking raccoons and walking trees. Humanoid shapes in every colour of the rainbow. Drinks that hissed and sparked and bubbled. High tech toilets that thanked you for your business in a variety of languages. It was all too much. Darcy spun in a circle and decided to make for the front door. She needed air.

_Is it even air out there? What the fuck am I breathing? Oh god oh god oh god…_

“Whoa!” a voice cried as she nearly bowled over yet another alien. Two hands steadied her and she looked up, fearing more weirdness, only to stare into the most human looking face she’d seen all day. “Hey beautiful, where are you off to in such a hurry?”

_Oh, he looks human. But he’s probably got like scales or feathers under there, and he’s… He’s totally staring at my boobs._

“Come on, dude. Can’t you even pretend to look at my face?” she asked sharply, pulling her green sweater across [her grey tshirt](http://www.theshirtlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/womens-classic-ghostbusters-tshirt-front.jpg), her panic momentarily overtaken by anger.

“Sorry, it’s just…” he mumbled, shaking off the trance her boobs had apparently put him into. “Ghostbusters...”

Darcy glanced from the guy to the faded print on her tshirt, an old one that she’d recently put back into rotation, and then slowly back to the human looking guy in front of her.

“What of it?” she asked warily.

“Are you… Are you from Terra?”

“What?”

“Earth! Are you from Earth?” he asked excitedly.

“Yeah…” Darcy asked wide eyed, her panic completely forgotten in favour of the excitement of meeting another human out here at the end of the universe.

“Holy shit! Me too!” he shouted gleefully, sticking out his hand for her to shake. “Peter Quill.”

And just like that all the oxygen was stolen from her lungs and the room fell out of focus.

_“Star-Lord?”_

** *** **

_Lady Darcy… Lady Darcy… **Lady Darcy!**_

“What happened? What did I miss?” she muttered groggily.

Apparently an intergalactic standoff, she mused as Fandral helped her to her feet. Sif had Peter up against the bar, her sword to his throat, a huge dude covered in red tattoos stood behind Darcy and Fandral, daring them to make a move, a deadly looking woman with green skin had her own blade at Hogan’s throat, whilst the raccoon and the tree she’d had the previous pleasure of bumping into were facing off against Volstagg, the former pointing his giant fucking gun at the Asgardian’s head.

“What did you do to her?!” Sif demanded to know.

"I don't know what I did to her! She just freaked out. She knew my name, I don’t know how. I don't know anything. Gamora, tell her."

"It is true. He knows nothing."

"Not what I meant,” Peter whined. “She's Terran, right? From Earth? How would I even know her? I haven’t been back to Terra in, like...”

"20 years." Darcy offered, earning a confused look from Peter. “Sif, it’s okay. You can let him go. He didn’t do anything. I just sort of… fainted,” she admitted, ducking her head in embarrassment. She was pretty sure Lady Sif would rather die than faint.

“What did this miscreant do to cause such a reaction?” Sif asked, taking a step back but not lowering her sword.

“And more importantly, how the hell did you know my outlaw name?” Peter asked, trying to edge away from the business end of Sif’s weapon. “I can’t even get people who know me to call me that.”

Darcy fished around in her messenger bag and pulled out her black rimmed glasses. She put them on a risked a glance up at the boy who lived next door to her when she was five and he was eight, and who never once called her ‘four eyes.’

“Your mom gave it to you.”

“Darcy?” Peter murmured, ignoring the second most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of Rocket’s entire life. “Darcy Lewis?” he repeated a little louder, taking a hesitant step forward when Sif allowed it. “Darcy Freaking Lewis!” he cheered, rushing to her side and capturing her in a bone crushing hug.

“Peter!” Darcy laughed. “What the hell are you doing here? Everyone thought after… Everyone thought you ran away. Or worse.”

“Ah, worse. Well, weirder. I was abducted by aliens.”

“No freaking way?!” Darcy exclaimed, shoving him playfully in the chest.

“What about you? What the hell are you doing in Knowhere? How did you get out here? Does your dad know you’re here? He would total flip his shit if he knew!” he laughed.

“I’m here with the Asgardians. I’m friends with Thor.”

“Thor. Prince of Asgard Thor? How the hell do you know him?”

“Well, he kind of saves the world from time to time, when he’s not busy making out with Jane, my boss,” she shrugged with a smile.

“Thor is dating an Earth chick? Thor has _been_ to Earth?”

“Yup. Apparently aliens have visited Earth before,” she adds, gesturing at Peter. “But in the last few years we’ve been properly invaded by aliens like, two… No, three times. I’m totally counting you guys and the Destroyer,” Darcy said, waving in the Asgardians’ direction.

“Ho-ly-shit.”

“I know, right?”

“Darcy,” Sif called, interrupting their moment. “We should be going.”

“We can’t go now. I just found Peter,” she whined.

“We have dallied long enough. Thor and Jane will have begun to question your absence. We should return post-haste.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Peter blurted.

“Peter,” Gamora sighed.

“Just give us fifteen minutes. I’ll bring her right back.”

“And where do you intend on taking her?” Fandral asked, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

Peter smirked and turned to Darcy. “You wanna see my spaceship?”

“You’ve got a spaceship? Sweet!”

They pair turned to exit the bar and everyone went to follow.

“Whoa, guys, come on. There’s no need for you all to come. It’s just gonna be two Earthlings talkin’ about Earth stuff. It’ll be real boring.”

“Lady Darcy is not going anywhere without an escort,” Hogun declared.

“Guys, it’s fine. It’s Peter. I know him.”

“You knew him,” Sif corrected her. “Twenty years ago. He is not the boy you remember, Darcy; he and his friends are fugitives.”

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah, our records were expunged,” Peter translated.

“I am Groot.”

“And we saved the world,” Rocket added. “But do we get the loot and respect we deserve? No!”

“That’s got to be an interesting story,” Darcy grinned.

“It’s an awesome story, and I’d be happy to tell it to you. On the way to my spaceship,” he added, giving the rest of them meaningful looks.

“Peter, we are supposed to meet the buyer-”

“In thirty minutes,” Peter said, assuring Gamora he remembered. “And I’ll be back in fifteen. Promise.”

“Darcy, I do not like this,” Sif pleaded.

“It will be fine. And if it isn’t… Well… You can just take your revenge out on Peter’s friends.”

The two groups sized each other, and their weapons, up.

“I find those terms agreeable,” Drax rumbled, crossing his massive arms over his expansive chest.

“Great,” Peter replied, taking Darcy by the hand. “Fifteen minutes, starting now.”

“If you’re not back in time, I get your share of the units!” Rocket called after him.

“No, you don’t!” Peter shouted back over his shoulder as he and Darcy made a run for it.

Peter and Darcy laughed all to Knowhere’s equivalent of a parking lot. They stopped on the third level, Darcy almost doubling over to catch her breath, and Peter walked passed all the hulking masses of metal to a sleek blue and orange ship.

“Here she is,” he beamed. “The Milano.”

“You named your spaceship after Alyssa Milano?” Darcy scoffed.

“Hey, I was abducted when I was eight, okay? What would five year old Darcy Lewis have called her first spaceship?”

“Um, Princess Sparkle?” Darcy blushed.

“See,” Peter laugh. “You don’t get to judge.”

“Wow,” Darcy cooed as she wandered through the ship. “This is so cool. I’ve never been on a space ship before.”

“Then how’d you get here? To Asgard?”

“Rainbow bridge, portals, teleportation,” Darcy said with a shrug. “I’ve travelled through space, I’ve just never travelled _through_ space.”

“Well, we’re gonna fix that right now. Wanna be my co-pilot?”

“Do I ever!” Darcy giggled, following Peter to the cockpit.

Peter got Darcy settled before strapping himself in and taking them out of Knowhere. He turned to say something to Darcy but the words died on his tongue when he saw her gazing out into endless black horizon with a look of pure awe on her face.

“It’s so beautiful,” she sighed.

Peter smiled and looked out the window, trying to see his world through Darcy’s eyes. It was almost ordinary to him now – countless stars, infinite worlds – but with Darcy by his side it almost felt new again. He pressed a few buttons, setting the Milano for a slow orbit around Knowhere and turned to watch Darcy.

“And that would be the severed head of an ancient, giant alien,” she mused when she got her first look at the exterior of Knowhere. “Unbelievable.”

Peter laughed.

“What?”

“This whole day’s been unbelievable. I can’t believe you’re really here. Star-Lord and Galaxy Girl, on their very first real adventure amongst the stars.”

“Oh my god,” Darcy laughed, trying to remember the story Peter had made up for her when he’d found her crying in the treehouse after the police had been called out to deal with her parents fighting. “Cosmic Girl,” Darcy corrected. “You wanted to go for alliteration but I wanted to be called Cosmo Girl, probably after my mom’s magazines, which you hated. We compromised and went with Cosmic Girl.”

“Cosmic Girl,” Peter smiled at the memory before his mood turned sombre. “So, what ever happened with your parents?”

“Oh. Uh, they divorced a couple of years after you disappeared. A few years later my mom remarried a guy who was even more of an asshole than dad had been. When I was about ten I spent Christmas with my dad and he was doing so much better away from mom so I asked him if I could stay with him in Virginia instead of going back to Missouri. Mom didn’t put up too much of a fight. I haven’t heard from her since I graduated high school, but Dad and I keep in touch.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” she replied, giving him a sad smile.

“Did you, um… Do you know what happened to my family?”

“They were devastated when you disappeared,” she said, unable to lie to him. “They had to organise your mom’s funeral and search for you at the same time. It was really hard for them, but the whole town got behind them. You were on the news, in the paper, on milk cartons. You were even on a billboard on the way out of town. They kept using your last school photo,” she added with a small smile, earning a snort from Peter. He had hated that photo. His grandfather had made him wear a tie. “The large scale search was called off about three months later. Your grandparents moved out to St Louis a year after that, to be closer to your aunt and your cousins. That was the last I heard of them.” Silence fell and Darcy needed to fill it before awkwardness got the best of them. “I asked your grandpa once, the blunt way kids do, where you went, and he said, ‘I think he went to stay with his father.’ He seemed so sad, but also kind of… I don’t know, at peace with it?” Darcy mused, trying to remember the older man’s face clearly.

“He must have known.”

“Known what?”

“That my father wasn’t Terran.”

“What… what does that mean?”

“My mom was from Earth. My dad… not so much.”

“He was an alien? Who was he?”

“No idea. Nova Corp had my medical details on file, from my arrests,” he added under his breath. “And all they could tell me was he was from some sort of ancient species. Who knows, maybe I’m related to that guy,” he joked, pointing at the disturbing giant floating skull. “Alright,” he said, getting out of his chair suddenly. “That’s enough moping. Time for some dancing.”

“Dancing?” Darcy laughed, following him through the ship until he stopped in front of his wall mounted music system. “Oh my god…” she laughed when she spied the analogue tech.

“What?” Peter asked, removing a cassette tape from the wall before retrieving his cassette player from under his jacket.

“Is that your Walkman?” she exclaimed, reaching for it. “Holy shit. Look at this thing! It’s in near perfect condition.”

“I look after the things that are important to me. Unlike someone I know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m totally responsible,” she attempted to say with a straight face.

“Then how exactly did Monkey end up with four different coloured legs?”

“Hey, don’t bring Monkey into this. He’s perfect.”

“He’s a multi-coloured giraffe.”

“I can’t believe you remember him,” Darcy smiled, handing back his cassette player. “I can’t believe you still listen to cassette tapes.”

“People don’t listen to cassettes anymore?”

“Nope. Haven’t for at least a decade. Everything’s digital now. Well, except records. People still have a soft spot for vinyl. Where the hell did you find an old school stereo system in outer space anyway?”

“Ravagers, the guys who picked me up, they’re kinda like intergalactic junkers. You want something, chances are they’ve got it. If not, they can get it for you.”

Darcy put her bag down on the bench and picked up the discarded cassette as Peter put in the other one.

“Awesome Mix Vol. 2? I don’t remember you having a second one.”

“My mom left it to me. The day she died,” he replied quietly.

“That was cool of her,” Darcy said after a moments pause.

“Yeah, it was,” he agreed, reaching out for her hand as song started playing. He pulled her close, smiling as they slow danced in the middle of his space ship.

“What’s this one called,” she asked although she remembered it perfectly.

“[Fooled Around and Fell in Love, Elvin Bishop, 1975](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyMMEmwFQUE).”

“This is totally your move, isn’t it?” Darcy asked halfway through the song after Peter had spun her out and pulled her back into his arms.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re such a liar,” Darcy smirked. “Five year old Darcy would have been planning her wedding by now. Twenty-six year old Darcy however, her bullshit-o-meter is finely tuned and it is going crazy.”

“Well, thirty-five year old Peter really wanted to ask you to dance. Something eight year old Peter would never have done. Mostly because you were still contaminated with girl germs,” he cringed, earning a playful slap from Darcy.

“Thirty-five, huh?” Darcy queried.

“That’s what my last bioscan scan said. You’re only twenty-six?”

“Yeah… I guess time moves differently out here. You look good though. Happy. You’re not that dorky, sad little boy I remember.”

“I can’t honestly say that I ever wondered what you’d look like these days, you were always that quiet little girl with a fluffy ponytail and glasses in my head, but I gotta say, you look amazing, Darcy. Puberty hit you like a truck.”

“Ugh. Puberty was the worst,” Darcy cringed, resisting the urge to pull her sweater across her much commented on chest.

“Oh, you got a killer rack? Poor you,” Peter teased. “I hit puberty amongst aliens, okay? My first time was with a chick with orange skin and three eyes.”

“Oh my god,” Darcy laughed, cringing at the mental picture. “You’re totally Jack Harkness, aren’t you?”

“Who?”

“TV character,” Darcy said dismissively, shaking her head. “You’re, like, sleeping your way across the universe, aren’t you? So many species, so little time,” she teased.

“Hey!”

Before Peter could defend himself further the opening bars of “[Come And Get Your Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkr77jE5GFY)” (Redbone, 1973) were interrupted by Gamora’s voice coming through over the intercom.

“You better be on your way back, Quill. And if you have soiled any bunk but your own no other woman need worry about your pelvic sorcery.” Peter could practically hear her sharpening her blade over the line.

Darcy raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, so I maybe have a bit of a reputation.”

Darcy snorted and shook her head. “Still a dork,” she said affectionately, as Peter spun her out one last time before returning to the cockpit.

On the flight back inside Knowhere Peter told her all about the orb, meeting his crewmates, and how they ended up saving a planet. On the walk back to the bar Darcy told him all about first contact with Thor, the Avengers, alien invasions, and the rise of the internet and social media. Each thought the other’s story was more unbelievable.

Both groups of warriors were waiting for them outside the bar when they returned and both were eager to be on their way. Peter and Darcy hugged goodbye, grateful to be able to do so this time but it was still upsetting because now they understood so much better that they might not never see each other again. Today had been a miracle. Hoping for a second was being greedy.

“If you’re ever in the old neighbourhood,” Darcy shrugged. “Just head for New York and look for Tony Stark’s architectural ode to his penis. He’ll be able to track me down.”

“Sure thing,” Peter nodded, flashing her his best smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “See you ‘round, Cosmic Girl.”

“Later, Star-Lord.”

Peter had barely taken ten steps when he heard Darcy calling his name.

“Darcy, what are you doing?” Peter asked as she ran up to him.

“Here,” she said, pushing a small rectangle into his hands. “I want you to have this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s my iPod. A digital music player. I’ve got like 2000 odd songs on there.”

“Two thousand?!”

“Yeah, and it can hold about four thousand,” she added dismissively. “Just sort the albums by release date and work your way through, oldest to newest. You’ve got a lot to catch up on. And the next time we see each other you can tell me what you liked and I can give you some more.”

“It’s a date.”

** *** **

Later that night, alone in his bunk, Peter was learning to navigate Darcy’s iPod. He found himself scrolling through her playlists, smiling at the random names, laughing at the obscene ones, and then one title caught his attention; “[Kick Ass. Go to Space. Represent the Human Race](http://elmify.tumblr.com/post/106066281653/allhalebreaksloose-interstellarmage-i-knew).” He flicked through the playlist and found that more than a few of them had outer space themed titles, a few of them he remembered but a lot of them were released after his abduction. After listening through the whole playlist twice he decided to rename it… _“Star-Lord and Cosmic Girl’s Interstellar Adventure Mix Vol. 1.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I did turn my thoughts to creating a playlist, an official "Interstellar Adventure Mix", but 8tracks currently hates me. I'll keep working on it, so if you think of a song that should definitely be on there please let me know :)


End file.
